'Swift as a shadow, short as any
dream...so quick bright things come to
confusion' (Hermia)
Lovers quarrels happen in the
mystical forest.
Only time juice goes into their eyes is when
they are asleep so they think it is a dream.
[Waking] 'what angel
wakes me from my bed?'
(Titania)
Dream as she is under a spell.
'Angel' is ironic as Bottom is
the polar opposite as he has
an ass for a head.
Language is very feminine.
'I have the most rare vision. I have
had a dream past the wit of man to
say what dream it was.' (Bottom)
Criticism
'...our interest is in the loveliness,
and gracefulness and
grotesqueness of the dream'
(Elizabeth Latimer)
'Most of the characters have an experience which
they find difficult to classify except as a dream, as
means of dismissing it as unreal' (David P Young)
'In the world of Shakespeare's
fantasy, dream appears to
represent imagination' ( Dorthea
Kehler)